Dyer’s books in recent years include “Ignorant Armies: Sliding into War in Iraq” (2003); “War” New Edition (2004); “With Every Mistake” (2005); “Future: Tense” (2006); “The Mess They Made” (2008); “Climate Wars” (2009); and “Crawling from the Wreckage” (2010). They are all still in print.

WAR

“Dr. Gwynne Dyer is one of Canada’s best known defence and foreign policy analysts.”

—National Post

Dyer’s classic book is widely regarded as one of the most compelling analyses of the history of armed conflict.

“War is part of our history, but it is not in at all the same sense part of our prehistory. It is one of the innovations that occurred between nine and eleven thousand years ago when the first civilized societies were coming into being. What has been invented can be changed; war is not in our genes.”

With this provocative statement, Gwynne Dyer launches his brilliant discussion of the history and nature of war. He traces the growth of organized warfare through history, showing conclusively that the basic tenet has remained unchanged — war is an act of mass violence applied against an enemy so that he will do what you want him to do. The only real change has been technological, permitting us to make war on a mass scale.

Gwynne Dyer has made available some sample chapters of WAR, for readers of this website: